Big big news coming to us today.
CNN has acquired Beme, the social app co-founded by YouTuber Casey Neistat. As part of the deal, Neistat will lead the Beme team as a new standalone media sub-brand operating under CNN’s umbrella as executive producer, and all 11 members of the Beme team will join the ranks of the news network.
The social app actually launched in summer of 2015, but despite early success claims including half a million downloads and one million videos uploaded within its first few days of availability, things went quiet about the app following its debut – so much so that Neistat even posted an explainer video on YouTube a year after launch explaining “what the hell happened” to the app. This preceded a May relaunch as the app exited beta with many bug fixes and functional adjustments.
the deal mostly seems to be a way for CNN to bring Neistat aboard, a successful YouTube personality who’s managed to cultivate a desirable millennial viewership”By joining forces with CNN, we’re able to give our mission more than just one, startup-budgeted shot,” Beme CTO and co-founder Matt Hackett wrote in a blog post. “We are going to hunker down and create something new. To do that with the full focus it deserves, we have to say goodbye to Beme.”
While it’s unclear what Neistat’s CNN project would be, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his team working on an app for the network’s iReport citizen journalism initiative.
TECHstance 